The highest four pieces of art are from when they were originally designing the park and have leaked over the years. When the budget wasn't high enough, they decided to build a clone of DL's castle. The lowest two are from the current add-on project.
Correctamundo.
HK had an interesting design history (from what I can gather)... whereas most other parks I can think of we can see how the design evolved in an organic way from the earliest plans to what was built.
1. There was an early HKDL plan (from the Making of HKDL book) that was very small with the Small World castle/ride at the back of the park). That is seen in Armitage's IASW castle.
2. Then there was what most would expect - a unique castle park in a similar vein to DLP - with a Rapids Ride in Frontierland and Dino Coaster in Adventureland... You can/could find art (Making More Magic Real book) & even a partial plan (on an ex-WDI architect's site - whish I could remember his name!). The unique castles by John Hor-y and Ahmad Jafari above reflect that park. The original press release also reflected this park.
3. Unfortunately, that plan was tossed, the budget slashed, (I believe) a new executive designer brought in (Tom Morris), and they started from scratch. With a very small budget the park was tiny, and the unique castle became a clone of Anaheim's (as seen in the Chris Smith painting). It's like they sold Hong Kong on one park, then delivered them another.
4. Now, happily, we are seeing the park coming into its own in terms of content and unique attractions, and the new castle is a reflection of that new chapter (hopefully, it turns out well).
